Glasgow announces opening and closing galas

Eva Green and Zelie Boulant-Lemesle in Proxima, which will open GFF Photo: Courtesy of GFF

Glasgow Film Festival has announced that two films by women - Alice Winocour's Proxima and Coky Giedroyc's How To Build A Girl - will bookend this year's festival.

The 16th edition of the event will open with the UK premiere of Proxima, which stars Eva Green as an astronaut, who finds herself torn between professional ambition and the demands of motherhood. The film, which won a Special Jury Prize in San Sebastian, co-stars Matt Dillon.

Winocour said: "I am incredibly excited that Proxima will have its UK premiere at this year's Glasgow Film Festival. It is a privilege to be the opening film for the Festival especially as it will be the first time in the festival's history that the opening and closing films are directed by women."

Beanie Feldstein in How To Build A Girl Photo: Courtesy of GFF

How To Build A Girl - adapted by Caitlin Moran from her own novel - stars Booksmart's Beanie Feldstein as a 16-year-old extrovert from the outskirts of Wolverhampton with raging hormones, an unstoppable imagination and gigantic dreams .She answers an ad seeking “hip young gunslinger” journalists for a cool London music magazine and reinvents herself as Queen of Mean rock critic Dolly Wilde and heads to the big city - but soon finds herself questioning her new persona.

Moran - whose film will screen on International Women's Day - said: “It is the greatest thrill of my life to finally unleash Beanie Feldstein as the noble, swashbuckling Sex Pirate Johanna Morrigan at the Glasgow Film Festival - and to have the honour of closing this joyous cinematic explosion means the whole audience can come straight to the nearest pub with me, and celebrate the hotness of Alfie Allen as John Kite. Unless Glasgow’s gone off that kind of thing since last time I was there. Which I doubt."

Tickets for Opening and Closing Galas go on sale at 12 noon on Monday 13 January from glasgowfilm.org and the full programm will be announced on January 29.

Allison Gardner, co-director of Glasgow Film Festival, said: “This year we close the festival on International Women’s Day and we are delighted to host the UK Premiere of How To Build A Girl, based on Caitlin Moran’s cherished, semi-autobiographical bestseller. The film is a hilarious and moving tale of Wolverhampton teenager, Johanna, brilliantly played by Beanie Feldstein, making her way in the world. Along the way she takes life lessons from her heroes, Sigmund Freud, Sylvia Plath, Julie Andrews and David Bowie, to try to navigate the unfairness of the world. I loved every minute of it.”

Festival co-director Allan Hunter added: “We are delighted to be opening and closing the 2020 Glasgow Film Festival with work from hugely talented female directors. What better way to start that celebration than opening the Festival with the UK premiere of Proxima, the latest film from writer/director Alice Winocour? Produced by Isabelle Madelaine and Emilie Tisné, it features a career-best performance from Eva Green as an astronaut undertaking the gruelling preparations for a year-long mission aboard the International Space Station. The growing tensions between her professional ambitions and personal responsibilities will strike an emotional chord with every parent.”